If you don't mind sharing, what finally made it stick when you stopped?
Yet he got drunk again. We asked him to tell us exactly how it happened. This is his story: "I came to work on Tuesday morning. I remember I felt irritated that I had to be a salesman for a concern I once owned. I had a few words with the boss, but nothing serious. Then I decided to drive into the country and see one of my prospects for a car. On the way I felt hungry so I stopped at a roadside place where they have a bar. I had no intention of drinking. I just thought I would get a sandwich. I also had the notion that I might find a customer for a car at this place, which was familiar for I had been going to it for years. I had eaten there many times during the months I was sober. I sat down at a table and ordered a sandwich and a glass of milk. Still no thought of drinking. I ordered another sandwich and decided to have another glass of milk.
"Suddenly the thought crossed my mind that if I were to put an ounce of whiskey in my milk it couldn't hurt me on a full stomach. I ordered a whiskey and poured it into the milk. I vaguely sensed I was not being any too smart, but felt reassured as I was taking the whiskey on a full stomach. The experiment went so well that I ordered another whiskey and poured it into more milk. That didn't seem to bother me so I tried another."
Thus started one more journey to the asylum for Jim. Here was the threat of commitment, the loss of family and position, to say nothing of that intense mental and physical suffering which drinking always caused him. He had much knowledge about himself as an alcoholic. Yet all reasons for not drinking were
So the problem here is going into a type of trance or hypnotic state, where you forget that you shouldn't drink. Have you ever gone into the next room and then forgotten why you went there or driven for many miles in the car and not noticed anything, but suddenly you "wake up" and notice where you are? That's a kind of trance. Stephen Wolinsky has a good book called "Trances People Live" [3] That I found helpful. Some people are always in an emotional bind that looks like a trance.
In order to quit drinking I had to wake up and remain awake, develop situational awareness, use tools like meditation and Cognitive Behavior Therapy, and a big one is deal with my traumas. I had some that I ignored or laughed at and minimized, but turns out traumas caused me to "space out" more than anything.
You ask an alcoholic why they drank again and they can't tell you why. They don't know. Drinking because you went in a trance state is a really difficult problem to solve and the reason most alcoholics don't recover.
Hope this helps.
Edit: I forgot to add that doing the 4th step is like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and doing the 5th step is like Cognitive Processing Therapy (for trauma) so you can get those for free in AA
[1] I use the term real because some of us in AA use it to distinguish ourselves from people that have 1 too many glasses of wine in the evening and then go to AA as a social club and call themselves alcoholic. I avoid meetings with too many of those.
[2] https://anonpress.org/bb/Page_36.htm
[3] https://www.google.com/books/edition/Trances_People_Live/yyy...
It wasn't until about two years later until I would have several days without cravings.
10 years later, I get cravings maybe once every few months and they are easy to let go of. Two days ago I got into a Lyft and someone dropped a pack of cigarettes in the back seat. The temptation was moderate to take them.
I think in part the brain hardwires to confuse nicotine as a type of food. Do not eat for two days, and that is what a smoker feels like for the first 2 weeks. Do not eat fir a day and that is what the first 3 months felt like (all the time, constantly). Your mind is telling you that you will literally die if you don't resolve the urge.
I think this is why relapse is so high for nicotine. You have to be consistently strong every time for months to almost be hone free. During that 7 years I had relapses usually after days, a few times I made it a week or two, once I went 3 months, and had gone 6 months twice as well before relapse.
FWIW, a person just has to keep trying. I admitted that 1) I deeply loved smoking. It is amazing. 2) there is no such thing as one last cigarette. Relapse would likely occur, and when that happens, my cessation efforts would continue.
As for alcohol, I'll just say that as incompatible as withdrawal is with holding down a job... being drunk is pretty incompatible too. I think if you can finesse one, you can probable finesse the other.
In general, my observation has been that as horrible as withdrawal is, that's the easiest part of kicking a habit.
It's definitely hard but the "just say no" approach can work. I do recommend taking it one at a time though. Once you've cut out one thing successfully, add another.
I lost 90 lbs with this approach.
It's harder, but the biggest trick was learning to pay attention to what my body was telling me, stop when it first gave me a sign to stop, don't start until it gave me a signal to start, and also... realizing that if you're obese (as opposed to an underweight person with an eating disorder), that maybe spending a part of your day feeling hungry is a sign that you are taking care of yourself. That sounds pretty simple too when you write it out like that, but my goodness just doing that is a so hard (yet effective).
Yes - may as well feel positive associations with hunger.
Just as many alcoholics can't handle a glass of wine with dinner or a beer with a friend on a Friday night, many food addicts just can't handle sugar or fast food at all, and would be better off cutting these things out of their lives entirely. It's a more hardcore lifestyle change, but it can also be a psychologically simpler ruleset to follow.
It's a hardcore change but "simple" to follow? Isn't that part of the problem? The physical and mental are tightly interwoven. Telling someone they should just eat vegetables and chicken breasts ignores all of the other problems, mental and physical, that could be leading someone to unhealthy habits. In fact, a "ruleset" like this could contribute to further psychological problems and then further physical problems. This is the issue with diets, they ignore all the other factors outside of food.
I ask because on the one hand it’s fair to say that I’ve never suffered. Not like my wife. Not like many on this board.
On the other I have have a pain, and I know where it’s from, but it seems so idiotic compared to what others have suffered.
And yet I seek escapism, the trance state where I try to forget my existence.
Perhaps part of you views it as “idiotic” because it is reluctant to address it?